lived in the District of Columbia at least 20 years). In the 1850s and 1860s he was regularly asked to run for Mayor of Washington, but declined every time. He was a very close friend of Francis Napier, 10th Lord Napier, the Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States from 1857 to 1859. In the critical presidential election of 1860, with the Whig Party in disarray, Tayloe worked to elect former Senator John Bell (running as the candidate of the Constitutional Union Party). He attempted to convince the Southern Democratic Party candidate, Vice President John C. Breckinridge, to withdraw his candidacy in favor of a "fusion" party that would defeat the Republican Party candidate, Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln won the election, Tayloe met with the president-elect on November 8, 1860, and expressed his views on the need for union in a letter which he handed to him. Lincoln read it over twice, then said, "I am not yet elected President, and shall not be until I receive the vote of the electors." Civil War years At the start of the Civil War, Tayloe was reputed to be the richest man in America. But with the outbreak of war and the loss of his Alabama and Virginia lands, Tayloe lost more than half a million dollars (about $20.3 million in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars). Some historians have alleged that Tayloe may have been a spy for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. William Tidwell and others point out that he was a noted Southern sympathizer, and that he had the education, skill, connections, and opportunity. Tidwell has even alleged that Tayloe met with John B. Magruder and George Washington Custis Lee (son of Robert E. Lee), both men later to be generals in the Confederate States Army, on April 21, 1861—the day before Robert E. Lee left Washington, D.C., to join the rebel armies. This left Tayloe in charge of a secret espionage ring in the city, it is claimed. Tayloe may also have helped provide funds to Confederate prisoners housed at the Old Capitol Prison in the city. It is even claimed that Tayloe may have helped conceive the kidnapping plot which later became a plan to kill President Lincoln. Secretary of State William H. Seward lived in the house next door to Tayloe's. Seward was almost assassinated on the night of April 14, 1865, by Lewis Powell. Tayloe